I like that P.D. James uses a team of detectives and gives us all their perspectives in turn, along with the perspectives of most of the suspects. She doesn't create a new voice for each, it's the same narrator in a different head, but it still helps to vary the narration a bit. To be honest, I think 300 pages of Adam Dagliesh, poet-policeman, would do me in.
The SARS thing was weird, but otherwise I thought the plot and characters were interesting.
Also, "But that was in a different country, and, besides, the wench is dead" is going to be my new response to any accusations of wrong doing. So I guess I have to read The Jew of Malta.

Un roman politist unde accentul cade mai mult pe personaje decat pe actiunea propriu-zisa si cred ca asta este si cel mai important atu al romanului. Prima partea, cea in care sunt prezentate toate personajele, este superba si arata multa subtilitate psihologica astfel incat dupa 100 de pagini (intr-adevar, pagini lungi, plictisitoare, cum nu se mai scriu in romanele politiste contemporane) aproape ca intelegi in totalitate viata interioara a personajelor. Altfel, actiunea este decenta, dar stilul este superb. Multi din cei de pe Goodreads au recenzat romanul ca fiind prea lung, plictisitor si cu descrieri prea minutioase. Eu zic ca tocmai asta este si ceea ce il face deosebit.

Perhaps it is even 3½ stars.

While I did enjoy this mystery, I felt that there was something about the structure of the novel that bothered me -- it was mostly a police procedural, albeit in an unusual set of circumstances, with the exception of the fairly long second section. Not only did this section differ in style, but for some reason, it also went back in time to before the first section. Why?? Couldn't this information have been conveyed to the reader while maintaining the style of the rest of the book? It seemed to me to be an uneasy mixture of modern novel & traditional police procedural which was unnecessary.

On a remote island off the coast of Southwest England, used as a getaway by the influential, the famous novelist Nathan Oliver is found one morning murdered -- hanged from the topmost railing of the island's fastidiously restored lighthouse. Since there were fewer than a dozen people on the island at the time, and since it's unlikely anyone could have come ashore secretly, the task of solving the murder would seem a simple one for Alan Dalglish and his crew. Yet lots of old coals have to be raked over, and a great deal of James's cumbersome prose negotiated, before the fairly unsurprising solution is revealed. There's plenty of clumsy dialogue, too, of the "You know all this already but I'm going to tell it to you anyway" variety. Aside from a rock-climbing sequence that's genuinely suspenseful, events just sort of . . . lumber on. Even so, the book's moderately enjoyable; just a shame that all the time I was reading it I was thinking it could have been done far better at half the length.

Written in 2006, this book has some elements of our pandemic times. PD James throws in the element is SARS, quarantine, masks the lot.
As for the rest of the book, the author loves to build the background of most of the characters down to how they wear out their slippers. It’s not for everyone, especially if you are after action. The setting of this book is also a classic, the isolated island.

This book sounded promising: an island set off the coast of Cornwall! I was looking forward to gothic intrigue with eccentric characters and wind-swept coasts. Nope. I was bored stiff most of the time. In the first section, we learn in great detail about three detectives in London, right down to their hairstyles and what they wear. Nothing happens. Then we move to the island and learn about every resident there in great detail, right down to their hairstyles and....you know. I was never so glad as when someone was finally killed. The resolution, when at last it came, was very anticlimactic. Oh, and tea. They all drink a lot of tea.
This is the only book I've read by this author, and I doubt I'll read another.

Was Kate in love with Adam, or Benton, or what?

Think of a crochet table cloth - follows a pattern, skilfully executed, lines of thread around holes.

4.5 Stars
I loved the Combe Island setting (even though it was fictional), it was so remote, exclusive, and wildly atmospheric that it became a character itself. Dalgliesh becomes more human or relatable in each book in this series, perhaps his relationship with Emma has more to do with that aspect. This murder case involves a small cast of people on the island and was deftly plotted by the author. I admire her writing immensely and am saddened there is only one more book left in the series.

I have read PD James books piecemeal, I’m afraid, but have enjoyed most of them. I really enjoyed her Cordelia Gray books (An Unsuitable Job for a Woman & The Skull Beneath the Skin), which were my introduction. I had forgotten about her books until the Dalgleish PBS series came out so have picked up the books when I find them.

PD James is not Agatha Christie; with her background in forensics, I always felt her books were more serious in nature; there are no gimmicks and very little humor (well, only very dry witticisms, and she hasn’t lost her knack!). I have always enjoyed her style and I still enjoyed this book but it seemed to have needed better editing so I wasn’t surprised to read that she was 84 when this was written (she died in 2014). She wrote a final book in the Dalgleish series and the stand-alone Death Comes to Pemberly.

Dalgleish is off to an island retreat after a famous but unlikable novelist is murdered. With only 10 people on the island, there’s a simple solution, right? But death is never simple, because people aren’t simple; they mess everything up and soon a second death follows. And, for some reason, SARS makes an appearance, knocking the steam out of Dalgleish. Still, worth reading as part of the series, but I don’t recommend starting with this book if it’s your first dabble in James..

3.5 stars

There were so many factors that added to my dislike of this book: I couldn't stand any of the characters, and the only passable one got very little lime light; the romantic scenes were so tacked on; I found the writing excessively descriptive and contrived to the point that I started ignoring the narrator wishing they'd shut up; the plot was not well paced and all of the vital action took place in the first and last 100 pages (making 200+ superfluous); and the qualifying of all female professionals just incensed my feminist sensibilities.

I hate disliking books but this was a difficult one to finish. This is my second PD James, although my first Dalgliesh mystery, and I don't think I'll be coming back. I just don't like James' writing style or the intense caste system that is foundational to this story. Perhaps forcing myself back into the mystery genre with my class didn't allow me to approach this book with the normal excitement I usually would, but I was happy to finally finish it.

I don't know what took me so long to go back to P.D. James and Adam Dalgliesh. Such beautifully crafted novels that Baroness James crafts (and at her age, too!)

Adam Dalgliesh and company go to a small isolated island off the Cornish coast to investigate the death of a man everyone seems to have hated. Familiar stuff, right? But not in the hands of Baroness James. What seems like a simple Christie plot is always so much more, with so much more deeply crafted characters under her masterful hands.